Relationship between religious and creative personality: The case of İnönü University

Approaches to creative personality have changed over time. Previously, creative personality traits were thought to be an extraordinary talent that not everyone could have, and a mystical meaning was attributed to this talent. However, this idea has left its place to the idea that it is a special talent belonging to a group of people with innate mental abilities. Thanks to psychology studies, creative personality traits are considered as an innate and developable trait of each individual, and are considered as an interdisciplinary concept on which different disciplines conduct research. Although the number of researches on creative personality in the psychology of religion is quite limited, the researches show two different results that religion prevents and facilitates creative thinking. In this study, it was aimed to measure the creative personality traits and motivational religiosity levels of the participants and to examine the relationship between creative personality traits and motivational religiosity in terms of various demographic variables. The population of the research consists of students who are currently studying at İnönü University in Malatya in the 2021-2022 academic year. The sample of the research consists of 317 students selected by random sampling method among first, second, third and fourth year students studying at İnönü University. Within the scope of the research, "Personal Information Form", "Motivational Religiosity Scale" developed by Uysal et al. (2014) and "Creative Personality Traits" scale developed by Şahin and Consultant (2017) were used. In the research, causal comparison and relational screening methods, which are relational research methods, were used as a model. Questionnaire technique was used to collect data and the data obtained from the questionnaires were analyzed in computer environment using IBM SPSS Statistics 21.0 and MS-Excel 2007 programs. According to the results of the research, there is a very weak, positive and statistically significant relationship between the motivational religiosity scale and the creative personality traits scales (r=0.142, p=0.011). It was determined that the level of creative personality traits of the participants did not differ significantly according to the faculties. There is a very weak, positive and statistically significant relationship between creative personality traits scales and age. The level of creative personality traits does not show a significant difference in terms of gender, class of education, type of high school graduated, educational status of parents, family income, pre-school education status and family attitude. It was determined that the level of motivational religiosity showed a significant difference in favor of the theology faculty according to the faculties and in favor of the imam hatip high school according to the type of high school graduated. Participants' age, gender, education level, mother's education level, father's education level, family income status, pre-school education level and family attitude variables do not differ significantly in terms of motivational religiosity.